


Defanged

by Zaxal



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Medical Experimentation, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Past Relationship(s), Trauma, wibbly wobbly approach to canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 09:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaxal/pseuds/Zaxal
Summary: Peter is an unwilling test subject for the 'cure' for lycanthropy. The rescue party that includes his ex arrives too late.





	Defanged

**Author's Note:**

> Written for inouken!

"We have found it," a clinical, distorted voice assaults his ears. With a sneer, Peter tries to test his restraints only to find himself still unable to move. Kanima venom is as potent as ever.

"Found what?" Scott's voice is familiar. Unwanted, as always – Peter can think of no one he wants to see him like this less. It isn't that Scott should have been his beta, it isn't that Scott's the True Alpha, and it's only partly that Peter hasn't given up his dreams of killing him and reclaiming the power for himself. No, it's the _pity_ he hates most of all, the worry in his dark eyes, the way he keeps _checking in_ on Peter even as he confronts the Dread Doctors holding him.

Overhead, a syringe glints in a sickly green light.

"The cure," the voice says in a crackle of static.

Scott's eyes blaze crimson and Peter's widen. He doesn't know what kind of experiments these idiots have been doing, but he is not about to be a test subject. 

Before he can interject, his mouth struggling to form words, Scott speaks, pleading, "Put the needle down. Please. We can find someone willing, right? Someone who was bitten without their consent, or- or someone who wants to be cured."

"This isn't a peace talk," Peter grits out sluggishly. "This is a _battleground_."

Scott takes a step forward, body language still placating, when a hand lands on his shoulder. Stiles is staring at the scene in front of him, drawing lines, connecting dots, finding the angles that will lead him and his pack to victory.

He leans close to Scott, murmuring in his ear, but Peter can still hear them.

"If the cure is impossible, Peter has nothing to worry about. If the cure is real... we need to know. If not for you, then for Malia and Isaac and everyone else they might try to 'cure'."

Peter expects Scott to ignore Stiles even though he's right. Scott's too idealistic, too innately heroic to stand to the side when he can stop someone from being hurt or killed.

Which is why it's like a punch to the gut when Scott doesn't move. Peter can see the decision being made as if it's a physical thing. The subtle way he'd leaned forward turns into a teenager's slouch, and his eyes, still glowing, move from the Doctors back to Peter.

The pity in them is stifling, and Peter finds that he can't breathe.

He feels the pinprick of a needle entering his neck, and his eyes flare bright blue at the pain, trying to heal the opening in his vein and skin, willing his body to move even as something thick is pushed through the needle into his bloodstream.

Peter has survived fire. Locked inside his head for decades, festering and seething in hatred and agony. The reminder lingers in the back of his mind, a constant warning and a promise of _never again_.

But this time, when the fire comes, it comes from within. He can't retreat into his head; he can't block out the screams when they're his own. The blaze consumes him. His heart rushes faster and faster and he's going to _kill them_ , he's going to murder them all for making him go through this. Every inch of his body is burning.

The darkness of unconsciousness doesn't come fast enough.

\-----

Everything fades and blurs. One minute, Stiles is standing over him, lips moving but no sound makes it past the ringing in Peter's ears. The next, there's a crash. His eyes blink open, lids heavy. He's lying on a cot, and he sees Scott's pack in full force. Lydia pauses at the door to the cell – since when is he in a cage? – and stares at him. Her lips move, too, and it's infuriating that he can't process what she's saying. It could be important. It could be-

He hears the distant shriek of a banshee, and when his eyes blink open, he's alone again. Struggling, he rolls on his side, breathing faster as he wills his limbs to move. He can't be part of the fight, but maybe he can get out and get the fuck away. Maybe.

The world spins, and when Peter comes to, he's on the floor of his cell. He claws at the wall to try and stand, but lifting his arms saps his strength.

He shudders and tries to remember anything past the needle in his neck, and then there are bright blue eyes in front of him, a familiar face.

It brings him a sick sort of comfort, which, he supposes, is morbidly fitting. Chris is the last line he has to that golden nostalgia, the innocence of youth, and try as he might, Peter hasn't been able to sever him.

Chris asks a question, and Peter chuckles bitterly. "I can't hear you. I can't hear anything."

The deafness is surely temporary, but he doubts he's going to get the chance to find out. There's no one else in this cell. Peter can't sense anyone nearby. There's nothing standing between Chris and revenge. Peter's machinations set off the chain of events that made Chris lose everything. His sister, his wife, his daughter. His purpose.

Chris is petty enough to do it, but only if he hasn't been given orders to let Peter live. Peter doubts any of the teenagers, ignorant of their sordid and bloodied history, would have thought to order the hunter down.

 _"Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent,"_ Peter murmurs, remembering the faltering French from their youth before those words honed themselves to a point, and Chris's tongue flowed over them like water.

Chris's expression hardens, and Peter readies to fight back with what small amount of power he can muster, but Chris lunges forward faster than Peter expects, rough hand grasping his nape and pulling him forward until Chris's breath runs hot over his ear.

The words are practically a growl, and Peter doesn't know how he hears them: _"Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger."_

Peter takes a moment, the rusty gears of time grinding away at the sentence until he has a passable understanding. He bites back a laugh at how it's softened, how _Chris_ has softened.

"I take it you heard that?"

"Clear as day."

"Good," Chris says, briskly and without moving away. "You've been held here for about three days, though I think the Doctors had you a day before you were moved here."

"That can't be right," Peter mumbles.

"It is. The pack tried to come get you before the first 24 hours were up-"

"Idiots," he scoffs. That's not enough time to formulate a decent plan; it's hardly enough to get all the information needed to make one.

He expects Chris to be amused or agitated, but there's no change in his tone. "They were driven back, but not before Lydia was able to get a reading to make sure you'd live."

"Not that I'm not enjoying catching up, but why are you talking to me like this?"

"Your ears haven't adjusted. And I thought I'd give you the courtesy of a little privacy."

Peter blinks. Neither of those sentences makes sense.

Chris doesn't wait for him to catch up. "Your muscles have likely experienced some degree of atrophy. Now, either you can stumble around like a toddler and possibly fall, or you can deign to accept some help."

"I was comatose for decades without atrophy, Christopher," he hisses, digging willingly into his own wounds if it means wheedling under Chris's skin.

"You _were_ a werewolf, Peter."

"I am still-" he turns his head with a sneer only to then catch sight of what he couldn't otherwise sense. Outside his cage, beyond the cell door, there are teenagers. It makes no sense. He should be able to hear their heartbeats. He should be able to pick out their scents, individuals and a slowly-forming unity that makes a pack.

His eyes move over them frantically, Chris's words ringing in his ears. Chris draws back enough for him to see the hard lines of his face, his grimace.

"He's not deaf," he announces as he stands up. He speaks loud enough for Peter to hear him, though he's still not processing, trying, desperately, to find an answer. "His ears haven't adjusted yet."

The wolves don't bother pretending that they haven't already heard Chris say this.

Scott's gaze is pitying, and he guiltily turns his head to speak to Stiles when Peter's eyes meet his.

He's going to kill them. After he gets Scott to bite him, after he gets back what should never have been lost, his goddamn birthright – he's going to raze the pack to the _ground_.

Peter keeps the wall to his back and stands slowly, gritting his teeth against the strange weight that settles on his shoulders. His pride is in tatters, accepting help is his best option to emerge with any of it intact. But from who? Scott would probably volunteer, but Peter isn't going to let him absolve himself of the guilt he must be feeling so easily. There are two obvious options: Malia, who still hates him, her grim expression unchanging despite the circumstances, and Chris.

If Chris didn't kill him when they were alone, he definitely won't in front of all these witnesses, even if every single one of them thinks he deserves it.

He takes a deep breath, the inhale shaking. A tentative step away from the wall feels like a success until his knees unexpectedly buckle.

An arm wraps around him, hauling him up under his arms. Reflexively, Peter inhales through his nose, trying to memorize Chris's scent, trying to find that memory and how it's changed, but his senses are so dull that it seems like nothing has a smell to it. His own arm goes over Chris's shoulder too easily.

"You move fast in your old age," Peter mutters, jabbing because he has no other way to assert himself.

"Could have let you fall," Chris reminds, straightening them out.

"This way, you get to be the _hero_."

Chris sets his jaw, glaring ahead as he helps Peter hobble out of the cell. The pack starts to move out, back the way they came, but Scott lingers behind.

There are too many factors that keep Peter from demanding a bite right now. The fact that he can't hear unless spoken to loudly or right in his ear, the fact that Argent is the only thing keeping him from standing up – there will be a better time to correct Scott's little oversight.

However, it _does_ bear reminding, and Peter's only too happy to put more of that weight on Scott's shoulders. "You owe me," he reminds the boy.

Chris's arm tightens around him, fingers digging almost painfully into his side. The silent message is clear – _don't threaten the child_ – but Chris wasn't there when Scott backed down and willingly sacrificed him.

He recognizes the building as they exit; built around the same time as the Eichen House, sitting on the outskirts of town. Seemingly inhabited enough to keep teens from using it as a hangout spot, but quiet enough that no one was ever quite sure who lived there or used it.

He takes another deep breath, still trying to used his dulled senses. Are there enemies nearby, is it going to rain, how long ago did someone pass through? It's torture to be so hindered, unable to monitor his surroundings.

"I'll take him home and keep an eye on him," Chris tells Scott unnecessarily. Peter highly doubts that Scott would volunteer, especially with Melissa in the house. He's not sure _she_ could resist the urge to slit his throat, either.

As Chris loads him into his truck, he thinks that it's almost a question of who's going to get there first. He just has to survive until he can get bitten again. He can do that. Probably.

"So," he asks as Chris climbs into the driver's seat. "Where are you going to dump my body?"

He sees the twitch of Chris's jaw, can practically feel him grinding his teeth.

He turns the key, and Peter feels the engine turn over, but the sound is muffled, distant. He can't resist rubbing at his ear as if that'll clear it.

"Your apartment, or mine?" Chris asks, loud enough for Peter to hear though it sounds like a mumble.

There are decidedly less things to kill him with at his own apartment, as loathe as he is to share its location with Chris. True, the hunter could probably find it himself with a little legwork, but it's the principle of the thing. "Mine." He gives the address which Chris doesn't punch into a GPS or acknowledge in any way, and Peter is suddenly certain that Chris has known for a while where he lives.

The drive is mostly silent. Peter wants to wheedle and annoy, but the truth is that he's too tired. As much as it pains him not to keep his facade up, act as though nothing's wrong, he simply doesn't have it in him. He hasn't felt this weary in years, and he _hates_ it.

He shakes the thought out of his head before he can follow it back to its source.

The truck pulls up outside his building, and Peter reaches for the door with all the confidence of someone who someone who has forgotten their limits. Chris says something, but Peter has already fallen out of the truck. Concrete scrapes his palms, and his breathing quickens. 

Chris pulls him up again, and Peter leans on him because he has no other choice.

"Stubborn jackass," Chris says.

"As if it's my fault human bodies are so fucking frail," he snaps back, desperately looking forward to when Chris dumps him off at his apartment and leaves him to lick his wounds in peace.

But the universe is a bitch, and Chris sets him down on his couch and immediately asks, "What do you want to eat?"

Peter knows immediately that Chris has been told to babysit him, and the irritation gets harder to ignore. "Nothing," he says in a low voice, wishing he could properly growl.

Chris rolls his eyes, but rather than arguing, he disappears in the direction of Peter's kitchen. Peter wants to get up and follow him and make sure he doesn't _touch_ anything, but Chris comes back surprisingly quickly with a big cup full of ice and water.

Peter glares but takes it as its offered. Then, he realizes for the first time how badly his hands are shaking. The ice is probably clinking against the glass. Not that Peter can hear it.

He hadn't realized how thirsty he was. The first mouthful of water feels like he's found an oasis after spending years wandering the desert. He had forgotten what thirst felt like until now.

He dimly remembers that he's not supposed to drink anything in large quantities quickly after being dehydrated, but pulling his mouth away is difficult. When he manages, he curses as the glass shakes in his hands.

Chris takes it from him, setting it on a coaster on the coffee table.

Peter grimaces. He doesn't want this, but the alternative is trying to do everything himself. Like it or not, Chris is the only person he has in Beacon Hills willing to do this for him, even if it's because the teenage alpha told him to.

"There's a diner a few streets over. They'll still be open. Just get me a burger or something."

Chris nods and stands up. "Same order?"

It's been over twenty years. Peter considers telling Chris to go fuck himself for acting like he knows him, like they're still, somehow, friends. Sadly, Peter _needs_ him. For now. "Yes. Try not to get it wrong."

"Stay there," Chris says without acknowledging anything else. "Careful if you pick up the glass, and drink slow."

"I don't need you to mother me, Argent," Peter says, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

"I'm trying to help you," Chris reminds him before turning to leave.

Chris almost slams the door behind him, and Peter clicks his tongue, muttering, "Temper."

He tilts his head back, sprawling along the couch. The heels of his palms are flaked, rough, and for a moment, he presses them together, feeling the spark of pain piercing through the numbness that's been overwhelming him. The hurt doesn't leave as quickly as it happened, a sour reminder.

He goes from staring at the ceiling to dozing, unable to fight the exhaustion that's weighing him to the bone. Peter swears he hasn't been out for longer than a moment or two, but Chris is suddenly checking his pulse with the same grim expression he's been wearing since Peter woke up in the cell.

"Not dead yet," Peter assures him, sitting up slowly simply to spite Chris's hovering. The hunter can't decide how best to help but eventually settles for sitting on the far end of the couch, grabbing two takeout containers from a bag.

Peter takes the one offered to him, cracking it open immediately. This, he can smell. The sudden rush of cooked food manages to get through to him, and his stomach _snarls_ in demand. He wolfs down the first burger, and the two eat in silence.

When he reaches for the glass, his hands are unmistakably steadier.

"I think I've got it from here," he says, mostly because he wants Chris to get the fuck out of his home, but Argent makes no effort to move.

"If Scott asks, I'll be sure to tell him you stayed the whole time. Don't worry," he says lightly. "I won't get you in trouble with _your_ alpha."

The emphasis on the last two words is deliberate, but they hang heavier in the air than Peter intended them to.

"I'm not here because of Scott."

Peter hates that he can't hear Chris's heart giving him away, broadcasting clear as day that he's lying, even when Peter knows he is. "No?" He muses, "Well, you're not here to kill me; this is too much effort for someone you intend to make into a corpse."

"You're right."

The fact that Chris refuses to extrapolate pisses him off, so he does it himself. "So you haven't been _ordered_ , but you'll definitely get some bonus points-"

"I volunteered to come get you."

Peter literally bites his tongue. Chris turns his head, meeting his gaze without flinching.

"They were keeping me updated about the Doctors, about their failed attempt to get you."

Something in that nags at Peter. Why _did_ they come after him? To see if the cure had worked? If so, they'd gotten their answer already during the first raid when they brought Lydia.

"If you want me to feel indebted to you for choosing pointless heroics, you're barking up the wrong tree," he says to keep the conversation flowing while his mind works.

It might not be permanent. The fire had taken almost twenty years to heal, but it _had_. Without knowing the components of the cure, the pack doesn't know what his body is doing, if the wolf is still in there, clawing slowly back to the surface.

"No, I didn't expect you to be grateful."

"Good," he says calmly, part of him resting easier now that he knows that this is an ongoing experiment. They needed someone to keep a close eye on him. Derek left town, and that left precious few people who were capable of dealing with him if he were suddenly in possession of all of his power again. Deaton is too busy playing part-time emissary, part-time witch, full-time veterinarian to actually step into the ring. That leaves Chris.

Then, it hits him.

If they need to know if the cure is permanent, Scott won't bite him. To see whether Peter's wolf is strong enough to fight back and win over the 'cure', he can't interfere, no matter how much guilt Peter sets gently on his shoulders or how hard Peter pushes him.

If it isn't strong enough to win on its own, an alpha's bite might act like a spark to kindling, giving him a push of supernatural strength similar to how he woke Lydia as a banshee. He doubts Scott will want to try that, especially with Stiles hissing in his ear that it's better if Peter is powerless.

He doesn't realize how tense his body has become, how his thoughts are racing until he hears Chris, muffled, trying to pull him out of it, but Peter tuned out the fucking television in his hospital room for years, tuned out nurses prattling, tuned out Laura and Derek and everyone else who talked at him cruelly as if expecting him to respond. Ignoring Chris is second nature.

He'll have to find another alpha. Deucalion... he might be able to talk him into a bite, but that won't be without its strings.

There are other packs in California. At least one has to have a naive alpha who will fall for something. It might be harder to charm without the benefits of hearing a heartbeat, scenting chemical reactions, but it can be done. He's overcome worse.

"Peter." Chris's hand lands on his shoulder, grip tight.

He keeps most of his cards close to his chest. "I bet a hunter has a _lot_ of uses for a cure."

Chris's gaze hardens, and he rumbles lowly, "I'm retired."

"Of course." His lips curve into a smile. "But your name still has a lot of weight, doesn't it? If an Argent said there was a cure, that it could be weaponized, hunters would _flock-_ "

Chris's hand moves from his shoulder to his throat. It doesn't last longer than a few seconds at most before Chris remembers himself and pulls all the way away. Peter trails his fingers over the ache on his windpipe, feeling dull pain every time he breathes.

"You're wrong," Chris says finally. "If there is a cure, I would only want it available to people who need it." He stands up, takeout container on the coffee table. He runs a hand back through his short hair.

"Like your wife." Peter's voice strains around the pain.

The tense line of Chris's shoulders trembles. "Yes."

Peter rubs his neck again, the lingering sensation still something he's getting used to. "You're not naive enough to think it'll stop there. Hunters have been trying to erase wolves for as long as we've existed. If there's no one left to give the bite, then _voila_. Problem solved."

When Chris speaks, it's low, a confession and a worry both: "I think you underestimate the number of psychopaths who enjoy having a reason to kill."

Peter can't tell Chris intended to attack him in the same breath he used to denounce his own people, so he doesn't acknowledge it. It's best not to remind him, though Peter doubts Chris has forgotten.

"The exterminators need vermin," he supposes. Getting back on track, Peter accuses, "You didn't know what state I'd be in when they came to get me. Even if they didn't ask for help, the fact that they told you at all was probably enough to cause concern."

Chris gives a humorless chuckle. "Can you blame me?"

"I can blame you for a lot of things," Peter says easily, his words holding a heavy weight.

"I could blame you, too," Chris says, turning his head to look at Peter.

He's so disgustingly at ease, unbothered. Peter's fingers itch for his claws, his soul aching for his wolf, but that isn't enough to make it surface. "Did they tell you what they did?" he asks to dig into Chris for his own satisfaction, but he wants to know, too, if Scott confessed his sins to the man who had been first an obstacle then a stalwart ally.

"You'll have to be more specific."

"Fine," Peter says, voice clipped. "Did they tell you how they could have stopped it, but didn't?" Chris's posture doesn't change, his face half-obscured by the angle. He's listening. "How _Scott_ , noble and righteous _Scott McCall_ sacrificed me to know if the cure worked?"

He could dig deeper, tell Chris how he _screamed_ , but it's a weakness, a vulnerability he's not willing to give up so easily.

"Would you have done it any differently?"

Peter smiles grimly when he realizes Chris didn't answer the question. It means that no, the boys hadn't confessed their part in it. "What use would I have for a cure, whether it worked or not? I would have sooner destroyed the entire lab than sacrifice a packmate."

"They had their reasons for choosing not to act."

There he is. The same man who had once found it in his heart to excuse the senseless torture and murder of an entire family, who came back acting as if he was anything less than a monster.

He chuckles humorlessly. "Of course, _you_ can invent an acceptable excuse out of thin air."

"Peter," Chris warns.

But no. They've come this far. Peter's exhausted, and he wants Chris to leave. This should be the final blow. "After all, you've had quite a lot of practice."

"I didn't _know_."

"You never asked. You never questioned them or yourself, or you would have known the answer." He can see Chris grinding his teeth. "You're not stupid, Christopher. Maybe you didn't know at the time – _fine_. But if you want me to believe you spent the next twenty years thinking of it as a senseless tragedy in which you and yours had no part, you're going to have to admit that you put blinders on yourself to keep from seeing the truth."

"They were my family."

Peter smiles unkindly. "And so were they mine."

"You killed Laura." Chris is grasping for something, anything that he can use to pull himself above Peter, but Peter has no illusions about what he is. "You tore her in _half_."

"That doesn't make your _dear_ sister any less of a mass murderer, nor you any less of an accessory."

Chris already knows this. It's likely an argument he's had with himself a thousand times. Peter watches as the self loathing settles in his grim face. "Finish eating, drink some more water, and rest," Chris growls.

"And if I don't?" Peter wouldn't abstain just to be petty. He has a fairly vested interest in keeping himself alive.

Chris doesn't smile as he answers, but the knife twists deeper under Peter's skin anyway. "Then I'll take you to the emergency room."

Peter grits his teeth, but when he fails to argue, Chris takes that as his cue to leave, his food still sitting out on Peter's coffee table as he makes for the door.

The air is heavy in the silence that follows the door clicking shut. Suffocating. And Peter reluctantly continues eating, knowing that there's no place he wants to be less than the hospital for an indeterminate amount of time.


End file.
